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Cornelius Orbilio spluttered his way back to the land of the living. ‘When I give, I like to give generously,’ he said. At least that’s what it sounded like. It was hard to tell with his lip so puffy. ‘And anyway, you should see the others.’
    Dammit, thought Claudia, if I wanted to laugh, I’d go watch a comedian.
    ‘Another of those quiet nights out with the boys?’ she asked, pushing him roughly towards the bath room.
    ‘Not exactly.’ His smile turned into a grimace of pain as she dabbed at his forehead. ‘They were Nerva’s men.’
    ‘Really?’ The cut was deep, but she did not believe it needed stitching. ‘They look pretty damn confident to me.’
    ‘Not nervous.’ Orbilio gripped his ribs, because it hurt like hell when he laughed. ‘Nerva.’
    He smelled of sandalwood and wine, and you could tell his tunic had been aired over rosemary, even through the coarser scents of mud and blood. Claudia pressed harder on the cut. ‘The aedile responsible for restoring the Temple of Neptune?’
    ‘The very same. Only instead of dipping into the sea for inspiration, he’s been dipping into the State Treasury. That’s an exile offence, so he set his thugs on me. Four of them to be precise.’
    Claudia shuddered. This was a night for foursomes, she thought, recalling the Midden Hunters trawling the slums. Funny, but she could have forgiven them, perhaps, had they been dirty and down-at-heel, skulking in the shadows. Instead she remembered the lavish embroidery, the cultured voice, and the bearded man with the horseshoe-shaped scar.
    The wounded warrior was making a brave stab at humour. ‘I taught one or two of them a lesson, I think.’ Claudia examined the lump on his head and applied a compress.
    ‘They didn’t need extra tuition, Orbilio, they were doing perfectly well on their own. Will you sit still?’
    ‘That hurt!’
    ‘Don’t be a baby.’ It was only vinegar to flush out the wounds. ‘What happens next?’
    ‘Oh, I’ll have them in irons by midday, and then they can decide for themselves whether the money they were paid was worth the price of their lives.’
    Claudia debated whether to tell him she was reaching for the salt and decided it would only make him fidget even more. ‘Actually, I was enquiring, in my usual polite and roundabout way, whether Nerva’s heavies had followed you here. Are we, for instance, needing to batten down the hatches and repel boarders?’
    ‘No need, they scarpered once the— Youch !’
    ‘You were saying?’ she asked sweetly.
    Orbilio made a grab for the salt and applied it himself, a tad more gingerly she noticed. Wimp.
    ‘Those bastards meant to kill me. Goddammit, they were using me as a human battering ram. When Weasel’s door sprang open, I’m not sure who was the more surprised. Nerva’s men, me, or Senator Plautius with some curly-headed rent boy on his arm.’
    Irony indeed. Had it not been for a senator who preached the high moral ground by day and stalked catamites by night, Orbilio would be floating half-way to Ostia by now.
    The painkilling properties of her opobalsam salve were beginning to work. ‘How do you feel?’ she asked, as he struggled to his feet.
    ‘I’ll live.’
    ‘I was afraid of that. Now tell me what you’re doing here.’
    ‘Me? Oh. Just passing.’
    ‘On your hands and knees?’
    A muscle twitched at the side of his swollen lip, but before he could respond, a small child had come barrelling into the room.
    ‘Hello, I’m Jovi, who are you? I got lost. Claudia found me on the Argiletum. I asked another lady to help, but she was asleep, so Claudia brought me to her house for the night and she gave me a hot pie and a bath. Have you had a hot pie?’
    ‘Um. No. But I wouldn’t mind one.’ Orbilio glanced hopefully at Claudia, who made a great show of finding a clean place to dry her hands on the bloodied linen towel.
    ‘I’ll fetch you some from the kitchens,’ said Jovi. ‘They’re very good pies, I ate